The Empowered Nerd.

vimothy

yurp
That the UK offers young men nothing, no social support (try actively supporting a premier league football team on Jobseekers allowance, or even going out at all) - no sense of identity, purpose or value.

So is the problem that these guys are still mainlining "toxic social conservatism" from some mysterious source (Game of Thrones, death metal), or that the advanced stages of liberal capitalism have undercut all the institutions that might once have given their lives meaning and replaced them with simulacra (Game of Thrones, death metal) and the ideology that it's all been for the best? I.e., is the problem a dearth of alienation, or an excess of it?
 

firefinga

Well-known member
Of course this is all belied by the show's regrettable insistence on having women take their tops off. A large part of the show's appeal is the sex and violence. Even so, I don't think the violence in GOT, as gratuitous as it might be, tends to be the sort you cheer along with. It's closer to watching a horror film, and enjoying the shock and stimulation of being repulsed.

I have only watched half an episode (so I am hardly an expert) but isn't that supposed to be set in the Middle Ages of sort? If so, there is way to little topless action going on. After all, the Middle Ages were times of bebauchery.
 

droid

Well-known member
Without commenting on the TV show, which simplifies many of the themes of the books, one thing that Martin did quite effectively was break down the standard fantasy tropes - the evil queen as fearful mother, the noble idealist ending up on the executioners block, the poisonous dwarf using politics for the greater good. This is reflected in his depiction of the effect of medieval warfare on normal people and the general moral greyness of nearly every major character.
 

you

Well-known member
GoT - I've only seen a few episodes from the first season (and the odd one from later seasons that I felt lost in). Still think my point stands. If the machismo of cop drama can be updated with The Killing, The Bridge, The Fall etc then surely fantasy can. Can't really put too much emphasis on fantasy's influence on white western male adolescence... gaming etc.

Vimothy - I feel both. It is a case of mixed messages. To put it in very simple, crude, terms, just to make the point... it is how film and computer games (generally) enforce regressive social conservatism. 'Men' solve problems and succeed by force. But when they turn up to work the next day the power relations are based on caring and social skills.

Of course, such mixed messages are only an issue if you require an answer about what being a 'man' is. But surely anyone can sympathise with a young male nerd's proclivity want to answer this question. Growing up stuff.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I have only watched half an episode (so I am hardly an expert) but isn't that supposed to be set in the Middle Ages of sort? If so, there is way to little topless action going on. After all, the Middle Ages were times of bebauchery.

Yeah, but there's definitely a lot of leering camera shots and although there are some flaccid knobs on show, not nearly as many as there are perky breasts.

I'd be a liar to pretend I don't actually derive some enjoyment from this aspect of the show on a purely loinal level, but it's regrettable from the POV of undermining the show's more enlightened concerns and attitudes towards gender.

This stuff has (as far as I remember) declined over the years, suggesting that for the first few seasons they were using tits to sell a tough sell.

Similar stuff is going on in 'Westworld' from what I've seen of it.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
GoT - I've only seen a few episodes from the first season (and the odd one from later seasons that I felt lost in). Still think my point stands. If the machismo of cop drama can be updated with The Killing, The Bridge, The Fall etc then surely fantasy can. Can't really put too much emphasis on fantasy's influence on white western male adolescence... gaming etc.

Are you saying that The Killing is an updating of the macho cop drama as in a break from? Or as a continuation of, what with its suffering women and violent men?
 

you

Well-known member
Corpsey - for the detectives, it is a progressive and realistic update. And there are a whole bunch of decent police shows that balance the problems of entrenched sexism and heroic female leads. Police shows have really moved on from The Sweeney - rightly so. And shows like The Fall, that show equality in the face of archaic sexism are particularly good. Contrast these with something like Homeland... which just pretends everyone is equal by having a sillily heroic female lead like Mathison (who nonetheless is, prone to hysterics and must be kept in line by the ever pragmatic (cos men reason) patrician figure Saul).
 

firefinga

Well-known member
In general, people in GoT (like in most other Middle Ages shows/movies) have too good teeth. Only Monty Python paid attention to the generally bad teeth situation of the Middle ages in their films.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
In general, people in GoT (like in most other Middle Ages shows/movies) have too good teeth. Only Monty Python paid attention to the generally bad teeth situation of the Middle ages in their films.

That was just the normal teeth of English people in the 1970s, wasn't it?
 

vimothy

yurp
Vimothy - I feel both. It is a case of mixed messages. To put it in very simple, crude, terms, just to make the point... it is how film and computer games (generally) enforce regressive social conservatism. 'Men' solve problems and succeed by force. But when they turn up to work the next day the power relations are based on caring and social skills.

Films and computer games are hardly bastions of "social conservatism". They do however depict the heroic, and on some base level that appeals to people (especially men). So it's good for business. Is this last redoubt of heroic values really the cause of the mass-murdering nerd? I'm skeptical. Suppose you removed this outlet for masculine fantasy (to be replaced with something that attempted to inculcate progressive values more systematically, I suppose); who's to say that school shootings would go down, and not up?
 

you

Well-known member
I'd never go as far to say it is the cause. But the level of film and computer game's influence on young people certainly plays into the complex myriad of reasons why they act-out. The Matrix's influence on Columbine was certainly overblown, but I'd wager that statistically most Hollywood heros are still violent males.

If you want to find a single reason for such crimes it must be access to firearms.
 

vimothy

yurp
These sorts of things are overdetermined. Certainly access to firearms is necessary, but it's also obviously not sufficient.
 

droid

Well-known member
This is an interesting book. Goes way over the top, but some of the arguments are persuasive.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64821.Going_Postal

Going Postal examines the phenomenon of rage murder that took America by storm in the early 1980's and has since grown yearly in body counts and symbolic value. By looking at massacres in schools and offices as post-industrial rebellions, Mark Ames is able to juxtapose the historical place of rage in America with the social climate after Reaganomics began to effect worker's paychecks. But why high schools? Why post offices? Mark Ames examines the most fascinating and unexpected cases, crafting a convincing argument for workplace massacres as modern day slave rebellions. Like slave rebellions, rage massacres are doomed, gory, sometimes inadvertently comic, and grossly misunderstood. Going Postal seeks to contextualize this violence in a world where working isn't—and doesn’t pay—what it used to. Part social critique and part true crime page-turner, Going Postal answers the questions asked by commentators on the nightly news and films such as Bowling for Columbine.
 

you

Well-known member
Vim - yes, necessary. But not the impetus for the intention. I do not feel there is a single core reason for the latter.

Droid - I've seen that book before. From the blurb this is along the lines of what I was trying (and obviously failing) to articulate a few pages ago. That on the one hand there is a culture of 'do your best and you'll be rewarded' with a reality of economic stratification, hopelessness, glass ceilings and inequality. This is one of the quite depressing facets of Berardi's Heroes book. The desperation and hopelessness. The plethora of violent crimes we are probably all thinking of (in particular school shootings) are not winning acts (this is why they are not analogous to The Matrix, I'm sure the perpetrators do not think the acts will solve any problems) but acts of hopeless desperation and frustration - perhaps this somewhat accounts for the conspicuous conclusion (in planning and execution) for so many massacres: suicide.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
The school shooter phenomenon is more about the supposed glamour of being a badman, isn't it? I mean a literal bad guy, a villain, far moreso than any idea of 'heroism' (a hero(ine) is by definition someone who puts their own wellbeing at risk for the sake of others, after all). Hence the stereotypical fascination with famous historical serial killers, dictators - especially Hitler, obviously - and transgressive music that fetishizes totalitarian imagery, violent crime, and so on - be it old-skool industrial, Marilyn Manson, Geto Boys, Insane Clown Posse or whatever.

It struck me a while ago that if Hitler were alive today, as an 18-year-old, he'd be the kind of kid who owns a large collection of books about Hitler. If you see what I mean.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I think most of them don't think of themselves as villains, but as heroic, avenging angels, revenging themselves on a villainous world. They also tend to see their forebears as heroic, especially the Columbine killers. The virginia tech murderer with his videotaped manifesto and his selfie poses echoing the heroic avenger in 'Old Boy'. And let's not forget that these guys usually kill themselves, also: they feel themselves to be martyrs. Breivik again is a great example: liked to portray himself as a heroic knight.
 

firefinga

Well-known member
The school shooter phenomenon is more about

Has got mainly to do with taking revenge for being neglected/expelled/mobbed and the easy access to firearms more likely. There have been four major cases in Germany in the 2000s. All of them have either dropped out of school (due to low performance) or been victims of mobbing. They had easy access to weapons (one was already a member of a shooting club - the Erfurt case - or took the guns from his father, a sports marksman.

That they used chatrooms and were playing computer games isn't cutting it at all, bc there are millions doing the same and not running amok. 4 shootings between 2002 and 2009 (meaning 5 million male students between 10 and 19) makes these school shootings statistically ABSOLUTLEY neglectable.

NOTE: I am referring to the German cases here.
 
Last edited:
Top